Into the Visible Darkness
by Alexemata
Summary: Ok, I don't want to give TOO much away here, so let's just say Greg centric with much angst...and the rest of the team'll be in there too-so just read and find out for yourself what it's all about...and review please!
1. Chapter One

**Author's Note**: Ok, first attempt at one of these so go easy if I'm not doing it right...or something...As I said in the summary, this story will feature Greg, but it will switch back and forth between him and the rest of the team (50 Greg, 50 all the others, you know what I mean?). Also, this is set BEFORE the episode where they're all split up, so Greg is almost a full CSI, and the team is still all together (and all I have to say is that they BETTER put the team BACK together or I think I might do something rash...like throw eggs at the writer's house...or something...). 

My thanks to the wonderful John Milton for the inspiration for the title. It comes from his poem "paradise lost" and the original line goes "Yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible." I apologize for any mistakes I might make in the whole CSI lingo...it's not so much in this chapter, but in the chapters coming up...I'll try to make it as close to the show as possible...

But enough out of me, I'll let you read now...I would really appreciate some feed back on this...let me know if I'm doing it right and if you like it or not!

**CHAPTER ONE**

The sound of the floor falling away beneath him was the last thing he could remember. The horrible crunching and splintering that swallowed him into the dark void beneath him.

It had all happened so fast. As he lay there now, he remembered it as a jumble of colours and light and wood, all falling the wrong way, falling toward him. And now he was buried by it. He had clawed his way back to awareness from the black oblivion of his unconscious mind, only to find himself in another world of darkness, a world where he was physically trapped and could not escape by simply opening his eyes.

He tried futilely again to move, to free an arm or a leg, but it was no use. Piles of debris from the furniture that had gone down with him immobilized his body. It had thankfully left his head clear, which in turn only made him focus more on the weight on his chest. Each breath had become a challenge, and as air came to him in slow, wheezing gasps, he thought about what he was going to do to save himself.

When the answer came to him, he realized he had known it all along. There was nothing he could do to save himself. He felt his heart wrench when he thought about how he had let Grissom down-how he had messed up yet again. A simple task. That's all it was. A small job to help out Grissom, to help out the team, and he screwed it up. Of course he did. Didn't he always? His mental berating frustrated himself and he felt his breath catch in his throat and burn as he choked it back down. For one panicked moment he felt no air enter him, and his chest seize up.

"I'm going to die." The words were a deafening whisper in his head, and he struggled against them as he fought for air. "No.....no, please!...I don't want to die here...please...I don't want to die..." And then he hear the voice in his head, calm and controlled,

"Breathe...just breathe Greg..." Ever changing, beginning as Grissom, changing to Sara, then Catherine, then Nick and Warrick, with a whisper of his mother, it murmured comfort and reason into his ears. "...all you have to do it breathe...you're all right...breathe..." and he did, hot tears running out of the corners of his eyes and down his temples into his ears, he gasped for every painful breath until he felt his chest relax.

He stared up and willed the burning pain to subside as the air came back to him, still restricted, but enough to live on. He saw a shaft of light had broken through from above, reaching its soft yellow fingers down to him in the darkness. As he lay and watched small specks of dust dance in the illumination, he felt hope. It wouldn't be long until they found him, they knew where he was, and that police officer was outside questioning the neighbors...

Something moved to his left, a shifting of broken furniture, someone pushing through the rubble. He turned his head as far left as he could manage and peered into the darkness. A sound cut through the shadows, an ecstatic whisper, a woman's voice:

"It worked!?" She moved closer to where he was, slowly crawling over the debris, and now he could almost see her outline, her body silhouetted by the shaft of light. As the sounds of her approach grew louder, he was caught between wanting her to see him, and trying to become as invisible as possible. Something was telling him that this was not right, that he should try and get away from her-  
but even if he could move, there was no where to go. So he lay still and waited, a strengthening chill running over his body.

She suddenly stopped her advancement, and Greg heard a sharp intake of breath. "We caught something..." she whispered and he knew he had been seen. His heart leapt and his mind screamed at him to get away, but he couldn't move. So he waited to see what would happen next.

She began to move again, faster, pushing and throwing items out of her way in her excitement to get to him. The sudden speed of her progression created a sick feeling within his stomach, which only deepened when her voice reached his ears again, "What do we have, what do we have here, what do we have..." she half sang, half whispered to herself. And then suddenly, too soon, she was there next to him. And Greg could do nothing but stare up at her, a halo of light sharply defining her outer edge, but shadowing her face.

She sat above him for a moment, and he squirmed. Though he was not able to see her face, his crawling skin told him that she was staring at him intently. Finally she spoke. "We caught a pretty one....yes I did..." she reached out and gently ran her fingers down his cheek. He tried to jerk his head away, but found he was frozen, his eyes locked into the black void that hid her face. "I told you he would have brown eyes...yes I did..." Her voice had lowered to a soft whisper, almost childlike, though the timber of her voice told him she was at least in her late 20's. "I caught him...so now he's mine...perfect...I told you..."

The surreal nature of his situation suddenly washed over him and he gasped out the first words that came to mind,

"Help me..." It was not what he had expected to say, and his voice sounded distant and strange-too rough and too helpless. But once it was said, he could only hope that she would free him, and give him a chance to get away. He caught a glimmer in the dark shadow of her face, her teeth as she smiled, and she leaned down close to him and whispered in his ear,

"We're going to help each other...always...forever..." She gave a small laugh as she sat back up and clapped her hands together gleefully. Her moment of joy and his of confusion were interrupted by an unseen door banging open from above them. They both froze and Greg felt his heart leap with a surge of hope. A voice rang out in the darkness, shattering the bizarrely dreamlike moment that had thickened the air around them a few seconds before.

"What the hell!?!" Greg recognized it as the voice of the police officer that had greeted him as he had arrived on the site, Jack Thompson. The woman suddenly scrambled away, out of the light from the upper floor and back into the shadows of the basement. Greg heard hesitant footsteps from above him and then the light was blocked out again, this time by Thompson's head. "Jesus Christ! Sanders? Sanders! Can you hear me!?" Greg tried to speak but found he didn't have enough air to project any sound at all. Instead he nodded stiffly, trying to make it visible enough for Thompson to see. "Ok, hold on kid, ok?" Greg saw him move to sit down on the floor with his legs hanging over the edge of the hole, and then slowly turn himself over so that he could lower himself down until he was hanging by his hands from the floor above, his feet swinging a little ways above the rubble below. He let himself drop to the ground, and caught his balance as the broken wood and glass and other debris shifted underneath him.

And all this time Greg was trying to call out to him to not come down. To warn him that the woman was somewhere in there with them. But when he did manage to hoarsely squeeze out a cautionary word, Thompson spoke into his radio on his shoulder as he moved across the floor to him. "This is Jack Thompson requesting emergency medical assistance at 420 west-" he froze suddenly, his eyes wide and locked into Greg's panic stricken ones. And then he suddenly dropped to his knees revealing the woman standing behind him, calmly clasping her hands in front of her. Greg looked from her back to Thompson as he felt forward onto his face, the long shard of glass protruding from his back glinting in the dim light. Greg looked back to the woman in horror, and her eyes flicked upwards from the dead police officer on the floor to meet his.

"He wasn't the first person I've killed so that we could be together."

And she smiled and walked toward him.

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Haha, not too bad of a cliffhanger, eh? Alrighty, review and let me know what you think...if enough people are interested, then I'll keep writing and updating...and you'll find out what I have in store for our little Greg...MUAHAHA...ha...ok, I'll stop rambling now...REVIEW! (please)


	2. Chapter Two

Author's Note: ok, a warning: this chapter is extremely crappy....it hurts to say that because I usually take so much pride in making sure that what I'm giving to people to read is good, but unfortunately, I did not have time to be a perfectionist this time. I might be re-posting this...but I definitely will have a MUCH BETTER chapter 3 up reaaaaally soon...it was just my exams that screwed me for this one!! (I meant it to be longer...and then just ran out of time...that's why the ending is slightly abrupt, but it'll be continued in Ch. 3). 

THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED!! I never knew an email could brighten my day so much!! I'm not sure if any of you will review again because of the crappyness of this chapter-but please don't abandon me-just hang on 'till the next chapter! HANG ON!!!! Special thanks to: pseud0me, Raven31 (thank you SO much for adding me to your favourites list!!blushes), Sandersgirl, Carkey, cupotrevor, angelbaby (that's too funny that you said that, because after I posted, I was reading it over and thought that myself!!..well at least she didn't call him her precious), Arkee, Tabicat and Sillie

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Alrighty, now onto Chapter 2...if I haven't driven you away already...

**CHAPTER TWO**

The door to the break room slammed closed, causing Sara to jerk awake, her head snapping up from where it had been resting on the table. Through bleary eyes she saw Nick standing in front of the now closed door, his hands on his hips and a smile on his face.

"Did I wake you?" She scowled at him and set her head back down on the table with a groan.

"How can you be so chipper at this hour?" His grin got wider and he strode over to the coffee maker and began rummaging loudly for a cup.

"Easy," he said, raising his voice over the ruckus he was making, "I had yesterday off...aha!" he produced a cup from the back of the cupboard, dusted it off and poured him self some coffee. "So now I'm all rested up and ready to go..."

"Yeah, well, I was suppose to have today off..." Sara said, her head still resting on the table. Nick laughed and walked over to sit across from her.

"Oh ho! Grissom screwed you again didn't he?" She looked up and frowned again at his obvious enjoyment of her misery.

"I feel like I haven't slept in three days..."

"That's probably because you haven't slept in three days." He flashed a wide grin at her and held up his cup of coffee. "Cheer up! Have some coffee..." and he took a sip.

And spit it out. "Jesus!" He wiped his mouth and looked in the cup as if he suspected it to be green and moldy. "That is terrible!" Sara leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, a sudden smile appearing on her face. Nick, his features still twisted in a grimace looked over at her, his face suddenly becoming ruefully slack with realization. "You knew didn't you?" She nodded, her smile growing wider. He tisked with disgust, and shaking his head moved to go dump the remaining coffee down the drain.

"Hey, serves you rightÉ" Sara said, decidedly more amused then she was a few minutes ago, "ruining my beauty sleep. I would've told you butÉ" she shrugged her shoulders and tried to repress a laugh as he began to gulp down water straight from the tap.

"Thirsty Nick?" remarked a new voice with amusement. Nick jumped and spun to see Grissom standing at the doorway, a stack of files in his hands.

"The coffeeÉ" he tried to explain, "it was reallyÉbad, andÉ" Grissom raised an eyebrow and Nick looked to Sara for help. She only looked at him as if she was also waiting for an explanation, her eyes sparkling with mirth. "Well where the hell is Sanders?" he burst out. "Doesn't he always make new coffee around this time?"

"He usually does," remarked Catherine, who strode past Grissom into the room and over to the fridge. "Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be around right now..." Grissom, who had been flipping through a stack of papers from one of the files now discarded on the table looked up at Catherine in surprise.

"What? Wasn't he suppose to be shadowing you on the double homicide?"

"Well he was," she bent and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before closing the door and leaning against it. "But he never met meÉI ended up just going by myself." Grissom set down the papers, his forehead creased as he thought. He looked at Sara and then at Nick.

"Have either of you seen him since yesterday?" they both shook their heads no. "Last time I saw him was when we got off shift yesterday morning..." Sara said, "but he was excited about somethingÉand he said something about not going home...?"

"Did he say why?" Catherine asked, and as Sara opened her mouth to answer, Grissom interrupted with,

"I sent him out to a scene." There was a shocked silence in the room, which Nick broke with,

"You did what??" and Sara closely followed with

"You wouldn't let me go solo until I had shadowed for at least-" Grissom held up his hands,

"It was just a B and E, and I sent him to take some shots of the point of entry-"

"But do you really think sending Greg was a good idea?" Catherine voiced, "I mean he's a smart kid, but-"

"One of Ecklie's guys took samples of primary evidence from the perimeter before he was forced to leave because of food poisoningÉEcklie asked for someone from my team to help him out, and since Nick, you were on vacation, and Sara, you were going on vacation, and you" gesturing to Catherine, "and Warrick and myself were all busy with other cases, I had to send Greg." He paused, and when a silence met the pause, he continued. "I have full confidence in Greg's ability, and all he had to do was take pictures-he knew it was strictly hands off."

"Sorry Grissom," Nick said after a moment of silence passed.

"I wasn't trying to question your judgment," Catherine said steadily and Grissom gave her a small nod and smile that said 'I know'.

"But that still doesn't answer where Greg is nowÉ" Sara spoke up, and as if in answer to her comment, Grissom's phone rang. Jumping a little and quickly patting his pockets in search for the source of the ringing, he finally pulled his cell out and answered.

"Gil Grissom," Knowing they should be doing something else and unable to, the others leaned in closer to better hear the one sided conversation. "What?...how long had he beenÉwell is there any sign of him?" Nick sensed a crack in Grissom's normally cool exterior, which made him feel slightly sick. He looked at Catherine and saw that, though her face betrayed no emotion, her knuckles had gone white from gripping the bottle in her hands. Feeling the cold grip of panic start to take hold of him, he swallowed hard and forced himself to turn back to Grissom, who ended the conversation abruptly with, "We're on our way."

Grissom looked at them and they knew that in the silence that hung between them he was collecting himself. And hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, they waited.

"That was Brass," he began, the calmness of his voice surprising himself more then anyone. "There was an...accident at the scene Greg was at-"

"Oh God," Catherine whispered harshly.

"No, there's no sign that he's dead," Grissom continued, flinching at the sound of the word 'dead'. He had become accustomed to discussing the technical and biological aspects of death, but when it was linked with someone you knew, he realized was unsure of how to deal with the emotional side.

"Well what is it then?" Sara asked impatiently, frustrated with being in the dark.

"It appears...he's been taken..."

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They pulled up to a small one story house on a quiet secluded street, the pavement and neighbouring houses illuminated by the flashing blue and red lights of the ambulance and police cars. Amidst the chaos of the crime scene, they could make out one figure, standing a few feet away from where their car had parked, waiting for them. Brass remained stoic in his greeting, although they could tell he was shaken by what had taken place. As they walked over to the house, pushing through the crowd that had gathered, he brought them up to date.

"It was a routine breaking and entering, which only calls for one uniform to be on the scene, plus one CSI," they all paused for a second as the paramedics pushed an empty gurney past them. They all froze, the realization of what that meant dawning on them. That the paramedics had found the person dead on arrival, and that the deceased had been left for them to analyze. Brass cleared his throat harshly and continued walking,

"The DB is officer Jack Thompson..." They had reached the house and Brass turned to look at them, "he was a good guy...good officer, good man..." He paused for a moment and then looked Grissom straight in the eye, "Find something to catch the son of a bitch who did this, will you?" Grissom nodded,

"I'll try..." and moved past him to open the door. As they all walked past him, Brass called out,

"Oh, and watch your step!" Raising an eyebrow at the warning, Grissom pushed the front door open, and they realized why Brass had spoken.

The door swung open to reveal a large room. There seemed to be no wall dividing the house into separate rooms, just one wide-open space. But that was not the strangest thing about the house. The strange part was that more then half of the floor had caved in, revealing a dark, gaping pit situated about 8 feet from the front door.

"Jesus," remarked Nick, letting out a low whistle. "What the hell happened here?"

"That's what we're here to find out Nicky." Said Catherine, pushing past Grissom and Nick into the house, stepping carefully on the wooden floorboards as she did. Pulling out their flashlights and following her, the others moved slowly into the house as well, automatically splitting up into different directions.

Nick slowly approached the hole in the floor, and cautiously peered over the edge.

"Here's our DB." He said, shining his flashlight down onto the immobile body of a tall, red-headed, stocky man in a police uniform, the artificial beam of light glinting off the shard of glass in his back.

"Can you get down there?" Asked Grissom, who was standing next to a broken window to the left of the front door.

"I think so," answered Nick, as he sat down on the edge of the hole, and then dropped down onto the debris below, coughing as a cloud of dust billowed up to greet him. Waving his hand in front of his face in a vain attempt to clear the air, he looked around. Broken furniture and wooden floorboards covered the hard concrete of the basement floor. He sighed. It was going to take forever to process all of this, and every second they wasted was a second Greg and whomever had him got farther out of their reach.

As he scanned the ground he noticed a void in the wreckage, situated in about the middle of the floor. Walking unsteadily over the remains of what seemed to be a coffee table, he made his way over to it and knelt beside it. It seemed to be the size of a person, as if someone had fallen, and then the house had fallen on top of them, surrounding them with debris. As his eyes scanned the floor, something caught the beam of his flashlight, and reflected it back at him. Pushing some of the broken wood aside he pulled it out. A nametag. Greg's nametag.

888888888888888 ahhhhhh!!!.sorry this chapter is so crappy...the next one will be soooooooo much better, I PROMISE!!


	3. Chapter Three

Author's Note: Hello to all! First of all I would like to extend a big thank on behalf of my self-conscious ego for everyone who told me the last chapter wasn't crappy. Reposting still feels like something I have to do in the future, but for now my focus will be new chapters.

BIG THANKS TO: Angel Baby (thanks for the encoding heads up-I've been trying to fix it, but or my computer still seems to be screwing me :( ),Lamborga (Warrick is in this chapter along with a one line summary as to why he hasn't been there-hurra for quick character entries with one line summaries!!), Tabikat, Mo Cat, Rehgai, fawkes21 (I am so glad you liked Sara's evilness with the coffee. Let's just say I was inspired my a real life occurrence and am glad I am not the only evil one out there :) ), Sillie, bree1387, WolfofMidnight, and airen (as stated before, I am trying to get rid of the E's-trying being the operative word there)

I really do not deserve such wonderful people as you because it took me forever to update- and I am so so sorry about that!!! Holidays were insane, then starting school again was insane, and amidst the insanity I had no time to write. But now that it's calmed down a bit, I promise I will make a valiant effort to update more often. I know I really have no right to be asking this, but reviews really do help push me to update, (as well as boost my ego-and really, doesn't everyone need that now and again?), so if ya'll could keep up the reviewing, it would make me a very happy person! )

The song in this chapter is "How to disappear completely" by the amazingly genius Radiohead-I highly recommend downloading the song (and am so pleased it goes so well with my story!! Especially the title.

Also, I wanted to add my story to the Labrat Central C2 group, but am not sure how to...if anyone out there knows how and could let me know, I would be much obliged!

And now onto the story-a little something for everyone in this chapter!

**CHAPTER THREE**

It was the hardest thing he had ever been forced to do. To fight every impulse of his brain and body and keep his mouth shut. In the movies he'd seen where stuff like this happens, the kidnapper would always have a gag of some kind, or a drug to knock their victim out. But all he was presented with was a whisper and a promise. A promise that had chilled him like the soft breath at his shoulder.

"I will kill him if you say anything...like I killed the other one..." The most frightening thing about the words other than the sadistic pleasure behind them was the fact that he did not doubt their truth. He had seen it with his own eyes, the brutal flash of glass, the glazed look of the officer's face as his life slowly oozed out of his body, mingling in with the blood that ran in rivets down his back.

So he was forced to watch in silence as the man he had known for so long, the man who had become one of his best friends, knelt by the place where he had laid. The place so close to where he lay now, and yet so far away, an incredible barrier of fear and static and speechlessness lying in between them. His mind was screaming and deafening to no one but himself. Calling out to Nick that he was here, and he was ready for this nightmare to end.

It really did feel like a dream-or maybe not so much a dream, but the half conscious waking that occurs in the middle of a dream. The moment when you don't know what's reality and what's part of your subconscious anymore. He felt surreal, as though at any moment he would hear the clamor of his clock radio and awaken fully to soft sheets and the comfort of knowing he was far away from here.

Amidst the crushing quiet of the darkness he laid in, the slow melody of a song long since forgotten had entered into the swirling chaos of his mind.

_I'm not here _

_This isn't happening _

_I'm not here _

_I'm not here_

He couldn't even remember who the song was sung by, or where he had heard it, but the dissonant rhythm had suddenly crystallized in his head. In his moment of fear and panic he understood the words better then he ever had before.

_In a little while _

_I'll be gone _

_The moment's already passed _

_Yeah it's gone _

_And I'm not here _

_This isn't happening _

_I'm not here _

_I'm not here_

Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced himself to take a breath.

"Take a breath Sanders," he told himself. Opening his eyes, he looked at Nick, who ran his gloved fingers lightly over the concrete where Greg's life had been twisted inside out. Having his friend so close gave him a small sense of comfort. "Nick'll find me..." his voice whispered inside his head, mingling in with the song that repeatedly chanted out the disbelieving fear rooted in the core of his being. Taking another deep breath he tried to make himself relax. "Somebody has to."

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On first glance, the broken window appeared normal for a typical breaking and entering case. But knowing that this was not a typical breaking and entering, Grissom felt the window deserved a more scrutinizing look. Upon closer inspection, he realized that nothing in this house was what it seemed.

"Grissom?" The voice broke his attention and he jumped a little and turned slightly to see Warrick standing next to him. Turning back to the window and squinting to get a better view of the jagged shards sticking out of the upper frame he said,

"Don't you have another case to be working on"

"Closed it...wife confessed as soon as I got there. Collected evidence, bagged it and then heard about Sanders and booted my ass over here." Grissom grunted a quiet acknowledgement as Warrick took in his surroundings. "Jesus," he whistled. "Where do you want me"

"Look at this window," Grissom said, stepping back to let him get a better view, "and tell me what you see." Warrick stepped in and bent slightly to enable himself to see better.

"Break pattern and shards of glass on the grass outside show that the window was broken from the inside."

"And what does that tell us?" "Escape route maybe?" Warrick answered.

"Or maybe this wasn't a breaking and entering at all." Grissom said, causing Warrick to look at him in surprise. As he opened his mouth to comment, Sara interrupted.

"Hey Grissom, come and look at this..." He walked over, trailed by Warrick and Catherine, who was glad to be distracted from the overwhelming aspect of dusting the large room for prints. They reached Sara who was lying on the floor at the edge of the hole inspecting the broken boards that currently jutted out into nothingness. Grissom crouched down next to her.

"What is it /"

"Look at this edge...usually it would be jagged, which would coincide with a break, or wet or moldy, which would occur if the boards were old"

"Well this is a relatively new house," Catherine interjected "the board couldn't have worn away by now"

"Exactly." Sara continued, "These board aren't jagged or rotten, they're smooth"

"What?" said Grissom, and he lay down next to Sara for a closer look. She had spoke the truth-the boards came abruptly to an end in straight edges.

"It's like they were-"

"Cut off..." Sara finished for him. He ran his hand over the edge of the board and found that only two thirds was smooth and the rest was jagged.

"Not cut off entirely..." he said quietly, becoming lost in his thoughts.

"Why would someone cut through half of each floorboard?" Warrick asked in frustrated confusion.

"The Myrmeleontidae." Grissom answered quietly after a short pause. The three CSI's looked at each other and then back at Grissom, a small smile spreading across his face.

"Huh?" Catherine asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The Ant Lion, or "doddlebug", as it is more commonly known." He said, his voice full of the excited satisfaction he felt when his mind made a connection on a case.

"And what exactly does a "doddlebug" have to do with this?" Sara asked pushing herself into a sitting position.

"The Ant Lion makes a pit, usually in sand, and then hides beneath it. Then the unsuspecting prey comes along and falls into the trap"

"So you think whoever lived here made a trap?" Catherine said, skepticism dancing along her words. "For who?"

"For whoever came along." Grissom said "But he or she must have gotten tired of waiting so-"

"They broke their own window on purpose." Warrick cut in with dawning realization apparent on his face.

"Exactly." Grissom said with grim confidence that his theory was correct. They said in contemplative silence for a minute, before Brass entered, opening the front door with a bang. They all jumped and looked his way,

"The house belongs to a Miss Isabelle Mumford, according to her neighbours. Early twenties, somewhat of a recluse - she hasn't been seen in a couple of days"

"So we have our predator," Grissom said. Brass looked at him in confusion and opened his mouth to inquire about the comment, but was cut off by Nick's voice calling up from the abyss below them.

"No sign of Greg," The four CSI's and police detective peered down into the darkness to where Nick stood among the debris, "but I did find his badge." They looked at one another, all of them recognizing the truth that stood before them, but none of them wanting to be the first to voice it aloud. Finally Grissom's steady emotionless voice broke the silence.

"Now we have our prey."

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NOOOOOOO!! GREG!! Wait, why am I so upset? I'M the one who knows what's going to happen! Please review and kick my butt to update sooner then I did this time. Next chapter we find out more about miss Isabelle and what drove her to be a crazy psycho bitch... )

(Oh and the Ant Lion stuff Grissom talks about is all real)


	4. Chapter Four

AUTHOR'S NOTE: sorry, can't write a rambling note today explaining why this is late....so much to do....no time to do it...this chapter isn't very long...but I promise another will follow soon!...thanks for all the wonderful reviews!!! Keep 'em coming! I love how happy they make me...seriously, they brighten up my WHOLE day!! Okay, gotta go! ENJOY!

CHAPTER FOUR

He watched with a detached and distorted sense of calm as the real world slipped silently farther and farther away from the soles of his feet. Like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland she dragged him away from reality into the deep underground of a bizarre dream world quickly filling with surreal horror. But unlike the young heroine of the children's books, he did not follow the white rabbit willingly. A drug had been produced: clear liquid in a clear syringe. And though he tried to struggle, his head had spun and his chest had burned with sharp fiery pain, resulting in him losing the fight before it had even begun.

A wash of desperation had filled him; the frustrating angst of knowing something terrible is happening, and knowing you are helpless to stop it. She seemed unaware of his despairing anger and smiled as she ripped his sleeve open up to above his elbow.

"This won't hurt a bit, I promise." She whispered as she held the needle up above her, pushing its end to see a droplet finally squeeze out of the tip.

"Please don't do this," He whispered back, his voice coming out harshly and riddled with emotion. His eyes flickered back to the now empty basement, the team having left it momentarily to assess the upstairs, and then work in a spiral down to the lower floors. He had wanted to scream out as Warrick helped Nick back up to the main floor. The words had been poised on his tongue, bursting to reverberate across the room,

"I'm here! Don't leave me alone! I can't do this alone! Please, help, somebody" But he had bit the words back, for the sake of his life, and for the lives of his friends. He didn't know how much damage she could cause before they subdued her, but he knew she was capable of murder, and he wasn't willing to risk anything right now- especially while he wasn't able to do anything to deter her. He looked back at the shadowed figure above him, took a breath and spoke the words more calmly,

"Please don't do this." She smiled again and slid the needle into his arm.

"It's for your own good." She said in an unnervingly tender way as he let out a small cry of surprise and pain at the sharp metal being pushed into his flesh.

Now he had become accustomed to the numb limpness of his limbs, and had stopped his futile attempts to move. Instead he watched as she slowly, yet steadily bricked up the hole in the wall that came between the basement, and the tunnel he now lay in. He had no idea what her plan was, but it was evident that she had been planning it for some time. Above him were support beams preventing the tunnel from collapsing upon them, and in front of him was a pile of cement, which she was spreading on each new brick she stacked up, closing the hole bit by bit, sealing them off from the real world.

With a twist of his stomach he watched as she put the last brick into place, and painfully observed that she had done a good job-unless under close inspection, no one would ever know a hole had ever been there. He could only hope that Grissom and the others would inspect every inch of the basement, and an odd flickering of his heart told him that maybe they would. Grissom was thorough after all....

His thoughts were interrupted when she crawled to his head and slid her hands under is shoulders. Again he felt himself filling with rage that came with the inability to do anything, but all he could do was lean against her hands like an oversized doll. She began to drag him for a bit, and he felt his body slide from dirt onto something made of cloth. She silently moved around him, adjusting the material underneath him, and when everything seemed to be to her satisfaction, she walked hunched over to his head again and began to pull the sheet he was on.

Things went surprisingly smooth after that. To his dismay, the sheet ran quickly over the unpaved tunnel floor, and the girl was unexpectedly strong. A couple of times, he hit a bump, and as his body slid over it he cried out softly in pain. He was sure now that some of his ribs were broken; he could feel them grinding against each other when the sheet went over a rough patch. Soon the combination of the drug, and the pain he was in, as well as the darkness that enveloped them, lulled him into an uneasy sleep.

He awoke sometime later to the sound of running water. He opened his eyes and immediately shut them again, the extreme brightness of the sun temporarily blinding him. When he was able to open them again, he quickly took in his surroundings, trying to get some bearing on where he was. He seemed to by lying in the end of a large sewer drain pipe, judging from the ribbed metal that semi-circled about two feet above his head. A trickle of water ran beneath him, slowly seeping into his clothes, as well as the sheet that was still beneath him. Rolling his eyes as far to the side as he could get them, he saw that the sewage water ran off the edge of the pipe into a small stream that ran away from him into a deep, fairly lush forest. Silence surrounded him, the only sounds being the soft trickle of water, the quiet breath of the wind through the trees, and the occasional call of a far away bird. If anything, the silence scared him more then anything. He couldn't hear any cars, planes, or human voices no matter how hard he strained. That meant no one was around to save him-or to hear his screams.

"If a paralyzed man screams in the forest and no one's around to hear it, " he mused to himself "does he make a sound?" There was no sign of the girl. All he could do now was wait and see what would happen next...

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ok, crappy last line, but I was a tad rushed for this, so please forgive me!! I know I said we'd find out more about the girl in this chapter...unfortunately that got pushed to the next chapter...but I promise that'll come soon with some time on my part and some reviews on yours---hint hint.....yes, I know I'm very subtle! :) YAY


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